June 12, 2006—Our Life in Wisconsin
 

As we’ve mentioned in many emails to friends, we are really enjoying our time in Wisconsin. We especially like our campground since it is indeed, like a campground rather than an RV park, and there are very few rules. We have the place to ourselves during the week. The cats are able to go outside without being leashed and we see lots of wildlife around our pond. Marc talked one of the old men in the facility into renting us his old boat for the season so we now have a small 12 foot aluminum boat to use for fishing. Marc worked hard trying to get the old Johnson motor to work but it just wouldn’t so our first foray on the Wisconsin River was rowing! I caught a small Crappie which we threw back.

Marc’s project has been slow going so far as the city still has not issued the building permits. His job trailer is being set up and utilities brought in to it. We currently get to use one of the apartment units as his office, which gives us the advantage of cable internet and a washer/dryer. Right across the hallway is the community room with a few pieces of exercise equipment I can use. The new units will add 80,000 square foot to an existing 25,000 square feet three story building so it will more than triple the size of the current building.

We live for the weekends when we can ride the Wing. We tried out the Great Wisconsin Cheese Festival in Little Chute, which is a small town near Appleton, near Lake Michigan, but found it not quite what we expected so after watching the parade we left for a ride to Green Bay. The entry into Green Bay following the Fox River is filled with old magnificent mansions and the downtown historical, but we didn’t really stop on this trip.

One of the pleasures of our rides is the plethora of small towns. They are so quaint, mostly built of brick and all the homes are neat and tidy. There are always many magnificent churches and there are also small country churches scattered throughout the back country roads we often take.

Water is everywhere, from small ponds like the one we back up to with our rig, to small and large lakes, and many rivers. The Wisconsin River is actually dammed at several points so it creates a string of small lakes such as these in the picture just down the road from our camp. Country roads follow the shore so it is quite pleasant riding. The lakes provide water for the large paper mills, such as the StoraEnso mill at Wisconsin Rapids which we will tour at some point in the future.

Any ride through the country side turns up more barns and farms than you could ever begin to count. Quite a few obviously date back in age and some are kept in perfect condition while many others show their age.

Despite the similarity of much of the scenery, the towns vary and are known for their differences. This Sunday we took a ride to visit Wisconsin Dells, renown for the boat trips on the Wisconsin River through chasms of limestone. In addition to the boat trips we found the usual carnival atmosphere of miniature golf, adventurelands, houses of horror, candy stores, T shirt shops, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, ad nauseum. It is Wisconsin’s number one tourist attraction (read trap). Since the weather was cloudy and cool we arrived and stopped for hot coffee and a nice breakfast at a place overlooking the treetops and river called the River Walk Pub, which featured an attractive log interior. We didn’t do a boat trip, but took a walk around town and time to visit the flea market featured in town this day. There were lots of antiques, one stall even had these marvelous old pedal toy cars—remember those?